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Digital platform company Akamai has released its latest State of the Internet Report . The report covers the last quarter of 2009. Among the findings are the persistence of Russia as the top location for attack traffic and of South Korea for speed of web connections.The number of unique ports attacked has increased by almost three times what it was in Q3. Sponsor The single oddest statement in the report is Akamai's contention that "slightly more than 465 million unique IP addresses, from 234 countries, connected to the Akamai network- 4.7% more than in the third quarter of 2009, and 16% more than in the same quarter a year ago." Given that most countries in the world recognize between 194 and 196 countries, it is difficult to understand how even the most liberal definition of country could result in Akamai's total. Here are a list of important and interesting trends that Akamai has identified in Q4. Attacks Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 198 unique countries around the world. Russia remained the top attack traffic source, accounting for 13% of observed attack traffic in total. The United States, China and Brazil took second and third and fourth place for a total of 20%. Akamai observed attack traffic targeted at more than 10,000 unique ports. Users Akamai observed a 4.7% increase (from the third quarter of 2009) globally in the number of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai's network. Ending 2009 at 465 million unique IPs. The metric grew 16% from the end of 2008, and nearly 54% from the end of 2007. The United States and China together contribute 40% of unique IP addresses in the world. The Scandinavian countries have the highest number of IPs per person. In the U.S. it was New Jersey that took that honor. There are 32 countries with fewer than 1,000 unique IP addresses. Speed South Korea retained its lead as having the most high broadband (over 5 Mbps) and the highest average speed (12 Mbps). In the U.S., the state of Delaware retained its lead, growing to 72% of connections to Akamai occurring at 5 Mbps or greater. Delaware also maintained the highest average connection speed in the United States, increasing to 7.6 Mbps. Over 40 of the mobile providers surveyed had average speeds of over 1 Mbps. Two out of three U.S. mobile providers lost speed for the second quarter in a row. Discuss
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Akamai's State of the Internet Report
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In part 1 of our interview with Adam Greenfield , author of Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing , we discussed the impact of the iPhone and other smartphones on the Internet of Things . In Part 2, we explore how the Apple iPad may also become a key device. Adam Greenfield thinks it may become the missing link between Internet-connected items in your home, for example the Internet fridge, and the Web. Sponsor In yesterday's post, we talked about how Asian cities are ahead of the curve in deployment of Internet of Things technologies. One reason is that quality of life can be more easily be delivered as a service in a country like Korea, because its citizens are more open to futuristic appliances like the Internet fridge . The counter-argument is that the Western market has never taken to the Internet fridge because of the poor utility of such appliances. The answer may be a device that acts as an effective intermediary between the fridge and the Internet. The iPad could be that device. Adam Greenfield explained to me that the iPad may become the kind of device that people carry around with them everywhere inside the house, from the lounge to the bedroom to the kitchen. That got me to thinking. Imagine this use case: you're feeling peckish, so you wander into the kitchen for a snack. Your trusty iPad is tucked under your arm, as usual, and you place it on the kitchen bench while you open the fridge. You guiltily pick up a chocolate bar and you're about to close the fridge door when your iPad beeps. You glance at the iPad, where a diet management iPad app has automagically opened and is flashing the message: "Hey buddy, you've already had too many calories today - put that back!" Blushing, you return the chocolate bar into the fridge and pick up a punnet of strawberries instead. You glance back at your iPad, which now displays a large green check mark on its screen! There are many other scenarios I could describe, but the point is the iPad may well become a linking device between Internet-connected appliances and objects in your house, and the Web. Adam Greenfield explained that the mistake we've made with Internet fridges in the past was to think of them like a dumb sensor. He remarked that it's not the instrumentation that is important in an Internet fridge - it's the network. The data will probably be collected by the fridge, in time via RFID-enabled food packaging. But the fridge itself is a clumsy interface to that data. Early examples of Internet fridges have tried to be an interface for the consumer. Although some have had tablet-like devices that could be disconnected from the fridge and used on the kitchen bench, users have not found even those very compelling. There are a variety of reasons, including limited utility of fridge-tablets, poor user experience, and the sheer awkwardness of attaching a tablet to and from a fridge. The iPad, however, will be used anywhere and everywhere by its users - inside and outside the house. So it's a natural device to use to connect (virtually, not physically) to your fridge - along with other appliances and objects. This isn't restricted to inside the house either. We've written before about cars as a service . This is where you, the consumer, can effectively subscribe to a car or a car provider. This is already happening with the American service Zipcars . Greenfield noted that cars will become a "network resource" - addressable, scriptable, queryable, and so on. And once again, the iPad may be the device which connects you to cars and all of the data that is pumped out by cars and connected web services. In the not too distant future, household appliances and other real-world objects such as cars will be connected to the Internet. The iPad may well become the connector to all of those things. Discuss
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Why The iPad May Save The Internet Fridge
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Last week I had the privilege of meeting Adam Greenfield, author of Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing . It's one of my favorite books about the Internet of Things and is still ahead of the curve, even though it was written in 2005 and published in 2006. Greenfield was in my city Wellington for the week, so I sat down with him at a local cafe to get his views on the current state of Internet of Things and where it's headed. If you're unsure what the world will be like when everything is connected to the Internet (hence the term 'everyware'), then read on for Greenfield's acute observations and examples of what's already happening. This will be a multi-part post, published over the course of this week. Sponsor What's Changed? Mobile Phones! Since it's been nearly 4 years since Everyware was published, I asked Greenfield how Internet of Things has evolved since that time. In particular I wanted to know if anything major had changed since the book was first released. He replied that the mobile phone has been the biggest change. According to Greenfield, the "single biggest failure of imagination in the book was that someone would decisively re-imagine what the phone is." I think he's being overly harsh on himself, as the iPhone wasn't announced until January 2007 . So in 2005/06, nobody but Steve Jobs and some of his team at Apple could have possibly imagined what the phone would turn into. It should also be noted that Adam Greenfield was a very early adopter of mobile blogging (he coined the term "moblog") and he is currently Nokia's head of design direction for user interface and services. So if the evolution of the mobile phone since 2005/06 surprised even him , that tells you something about how much of a sea change the iPhone has been. RFID One thing that hasn't changed as much as first thought is RFID. Greenfield ruefully noted that "this stuff is taking so long." There are scenarios in Everyware that haven't come to pass yet, such as RFID in credit cards and home theatres. However he thinks that RFID will eventually be usurped by superior item identification and tracking technologies. See this ReadWriteWeb post for more background on the state of RFID. The City Currently Adam Greenfield is working on his next book, called The City Is Here For You To Use . I asked him what cities he's been most impressed with, in terms of their use of Internet of Things technologies. He mentioned Korea and Singapore, noting also that municipalities in East Asia have made a lot of progress. According to Adam Greenfield, a more interesting question may be: what kind of responses are those cities getting from companies? He said that technology companies like Cisco and Intel are responding with products and services for Internet of Things. I asked Greenfield what he thought the differences were between adoption in Asia and the U.S.? He replied that public motivation in Asia may be one differentiator. In many Asian countries, there is a belief in 'progress' and a future life that will be better because of the "heroic investments" of governments and big companies. He said that quality of life can be delivered as a service in a place like Korea, for example an Internet fridge . Whereas westerners tend to question the utility of things like that. To get a wider understanding of Internet of Things, I recommend you purchase Everyware now on Amazon . Neither myself or RWW is making any commission on this, I just think this book deserves a wider audience. Stay tuned for more from Adam Greenfield in Part 2 of this series. Discuss
Read more here:
Everyware: Interview with Adam Greenfield, Part 1
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Your phone can translate foreign language text just by looking at it through Google Goggles. A South Korean telecom has released a product similar to Google Goggles. The social content Augmented Reality mobile browser junaio will have a new version released at SXSW next month and there's now an 8 minute video from TED available detailing Microsoft's plans for Bing, including Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality (AR), the practice of displaying data on top of our view of the world around us, is hot stuff. Below are the top stories on AR from around the web over the past 24 hours, selected with help from OneSpot . Watch this space: ReadWriteWeb will be releasing a research report on the use of AR for marketing very soon. Sponsor Google Demos New Translation Functionality For Google Goggles Geek Sugar "We've been able to translate languages with the help of Google Translate for a while now, but this new function within Google Goggles (which I'm already a big fan of) kind of blows my mind." metaio @ SXSW 2010 Augmented Reality Blog Metaio will present a whole new version of its social content mobile AR browser junaio at SXSW this year. The company's Unifeye Mobile SDK is also among the finalists of the "Accelerator" competition. A New Augmented Reality (AR) Application in Korea : Ovjet GIS + AR (Augmented Reality) "Korean mobile network provider SK Telecom has revealed a new augmented reality application called Ovjet for Android-platform mobile phones. It seems like quite similar to the concept of Google Goggles. " OllieBray.com: Microsoft Bing Maps augmented reality demo at the TED 2010 Short 8 minute TED Talk from Microsoft's Blaise Aguera y Arcas on the company's latest evolution of Bing Maps. Included an Augmented Reality demo. Here's the video. Discuss
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Google Goggles, Metaio, Bing AR: Today's Top Stories in Augmented Reality
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